Website Quality Evaluation Based on Sitemap

Website Quality Evaluation Based on Sitemap M.Chandran A.V.Ramani Abstract Website quality evaluation can be made based on creating site map for the WebPages for a single website which works properly. A website is taken for the analysis where we check every link under that website are checker and split it according to status code. By analyzing every status code from all those webpage links, we are ignoring every other link except the page contains status code 200. Then we are developing the sitemap for those links which is working perfectly. Keyword: Sitemap, Website, Search Engine Optimization, SMGA. 1. Introduction Website are something entirely new in the world of software quality, within minutes of going live .[]The World Wide Web has made the spread of information and ideas easy and accessible to millions. It’s the place where everyone has an opportunity to be heard—that is, if you can be found amidst the multitude of other Web sites out there. Every WebPages has their own characteristics and this characteristic has drawbacks and benefits.[1] There are many dimensions of quality, and each measure will pertain to a particular website in varying degrees. Here are some of them: time, a credible site should be updated frequently. The information about latest update also should be included on the homepage. However, if the information has not been updated currently, the visitor could easily know that perhaps the site manager does really bother to update the site. Second is structural, all of the parts of the website hold together and all links inside and outside the website should work well. Broken links on the webpage also are another factor that always downgrades the quality of website. Each page usually has references or links or connections to other pages. These may be internal or external web site. A user expects each link to be valid, meaning that it leads successfully to the intended page or other resource. In a 2003 experiment, discovered that about one link out of every 200 disappeared each week from the Internet [1]. The third factor is content;number of the links, or link popularity is one of the off page factors that search engines are looking to determine the value of the webpage. Most of search engine will need a website to have at least two links pointing to their site before they will place it to their index, and the idea of this link popularity is that to increase the link popularity of a website, this website must have large amount of high quality content. Number of links to website improves access growth and helps to generate traffic [2]. PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + + R(tn)/C(tn)) PR = page rank t1 – tn = are pages linking to page A C = is the number of outbound links that a page as D = is a damping factor, usually set to 0.85. Search engine such Google make a citation analysis to rank hits, then a website which has a any links to it will have a higher ranking compare than a website with a few links. This indicator can be used to measure the quality of web site. Fourth is response time and latency, a website server should respond to a browser request within certain parameters, it is found that extraneous content exists on the majority of popular pages, and that blocking this content buys a 25-30% reduction in objects downloaded and bytes, with a 33% decrease in page latency. Popular sites averaged 52 objects per page, 8.1 of which were ads, served from 5.7 servers [3], and object overhead now dominates the latency of most web pages [4]. Following the The first step would be to be sure your sitemap is up to date to begin with and has all the URLs you want. The main thing is none of them should 404 and then beyond that, yes, they should return 200s. Unless youre dealing with a gigantic site which might be hard to maintain, in theory there shouldnt be errors in sitemaps if you have the correct URLs in there. Getting sitemaps right on a large site made a huge difference to the crawl rate and a huge indexation to follow [3]. With growth of web-site content its getting harder and harder to manage relations between individual WebPages and keep track of hyperlinks within a site. Unfortunately there are no perfect web-site integrity tools or services that can enforce proper relationship between pages, keep track of moving content, webpage renames etc, and update corresponding URLs automatically. Modern content management systems and blog software may aggravate the problem even more by Replicating the same dead web links across numerous web-pages which they generate dynamically, so people can be getting 404 errors much more frequently.[4] Sitemap Sitemaps, as the name implies, are just a map of your site i.e. on one single page you show the structure of your site, its sections, the links between them, etc. Sitemaps make navigating your site easier and having an updated sitemap on your site is good both for your users and for search engines.[3]. Important sitemap errors that could affect our rankings The first step would be to be sure your sitemap is up to date to begin with and has all the URLs you want (and not any you dont want). The main thing is none of them should 404 and then beyond that, yes, they should return 200s. Unless youre dealing with a gigantic site which might be hard to maintain, in theory there shouldnt be errors in sitemaps if you have the correct URLs in there. Getting sitemaps right on a large site made a huge difference to the crawl rate and a huge indexation to follow. 2. Problem Definition . Every webpage design has their own characteristics and this characteristic has drawbacks and benefits. There is a mechanism for measuring the effects of the webpage component toward the performance and quality of website. This mechanism will measure size, component, and time needed by the client for downloading a website. The main factor that will influences this download time are page size (bytes), number and types of component, number of server from the accessed web. Research conducted by IBM can be used as a standard for performance measurement of quality [7]. Standard international download time for this performance can be used as a reference to categorize the tested webpage. After we have done with data, and then continued by testing of data. Table1. Standard of the website performance Four Reasons to keep Site Map A site map is literally a map of your Web site. It is a tool that allows visitors to easily get around your site. Having a well constructed site map is not only important to create a positive experience for your potential customers, but is an important aspect of search engine optimization. Below are 4 functions of a site map. Navigation A site map provides an organized list of links to all the pages on your Web site. If visitors get lost while browsing your site, they can always refer to your site map to see where they are and get where they would like to go. Site maps allow your visitors to navigate your Web site with ease. Theme When visitors access your site map, they will learn a lot about your Web site within a very short period of time. A well constructed site map will allow visitors to easily and efficiently grasp your site. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Since a site map is a single page that contains links to every page on your Web site, it is a very effective way to help search engine spiders crawl through your site with ease.Since search engines rely on links to find the main pages of your site, a site map is a great way to get every page on your site indexed by the search engines. The more pages you have indexed by the search engines, the more potential you will have to reach a greater number of prospective clients. The World Wide Web has made the spread of information and ideas easy and accessible to millions. It’s the place where everyone has an opportunity to be heard—that is, if you can be found amidst the multitude of other Web sites out there. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your Web site accessible to people using search engines to find services you provide. Search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing) operate by providing users with a list of relevant search results based on keywords users enter. This allows people who don’t know your Web site address to find your site through keyword searches [1]. Some basic features of Web sites that search engine spiders look for are:Keyword usage, Keyword placement, Compelling content, HTML title tags, meta-descriptions and Keyword tags, External and internal links, Site updates, Site map, Web design, Functionality. Effective keyword usage is not simply based on repeating a keyword or phrase over and over on your Web site. Organization A site map enables you to easilyassess the structureof your site to see where your site is strong and where it is weak. Whenever you need to add new content or new sections to your Web site, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration by glancing at your site map.[1] Sitemap files have a limit of 50,000 URLs and 10 megabytes per sitemap. Sitemaps can be compressed usinggzip, reducing bandwidth consumption. Multiple sitemap files are supported, with aSitemap indexfile serving as an entry point.Sitemap indexfiles may not list more than 50,000 Sitemaps and must be no larger than 10MiB(10,485,760 bytes) and can be compressed. You can have more than oneSitemap indexfile [2] 3. Methodologies This research stages will start with problem identification followed by research procedure and sample of data explanation. Nature of invalid hyperlinks With growth of web-site content its getting harder and harder to manage relations between individual WebPages and keep track of hyperlinks within a site. Unfortunately there are no perfect web-site integrity tools or services that can enforce proper relationship between pages, keep track of moving content, webpage renames etc, and update corresponding URLs automatically. With time this causes some hyperlinks becomeobsolete,stale,dangling, and simply deadbecause they dont lead to valid pages anymore, and web-users are going to get404response codes or other unsuccessful HTTPresponses each time when they try to access the web-pages. Modern content management systems and blog software may aggravate the problem even more by replicating the same dead weblinks across numerous web-pages which they generate dynamically, so people can be getting 404 errors much more frequently. Important of onlinelink checker Due to lack of adequate problem detection tools (aka URL validators, web spiders, HTML crawlers, websites health analyzers etc) its really very hard to identify what exact local and outbound hyperlinks became dead, and its even harder to fix those because in order to do so you need to know precise location of the broken linking tag in the HTML code: without that you will need to scan through thousands source lines to find exact HREF (or other linking sub-tag) that causes the problem. Sample Data In order to get data for this research, we examined Ramakrishna mission portals were not randomly selected, but a careful process was undertaken. Rather than selecting any generic [5] At the beginning of the process we are giving the website link. As we can see that the status of that website, whether it presents or not. By the analysis of this functionality we can able to get the status code of the website link. As shown in the figure, the domain name, ip address and server name with status code would be displayed. If the website status code is 200 then the website link that we gave is completely ok. If the website link we gave is broken or deleted than it will display the 404 status code error. Constructing Tree Structure by Applying Site Mapping Generation Algorithm (SMGA) MAPGEN(Di) { GenRoot(m1,.mn); // Getting root node for menus For i0 to n For j0 to f s[j]=GetChild(mi,j); // For getting child node End For If s[i]==NULL AddNode(mi,NULL); //No child node for root Else AddNode(s[i], mi); // adding child to root node End If End For For all m, sDomain } 4. Result and Discussion In Table-2, we are giving a website link (http://www.srkv.org) to test whether that link present or not. After receiving that the status of that link as 200, we are examining whether that link has site map or not. If we got to know that the website does not have the site map, we are moving to the next step of process. Table-2: From Table-3, we are exploring how many links totally that website contains. With the help of that data we are processing every single link that we got to receive the status code of that link. By categorizing that we are splitting them into number of collection sorted by status code. We are developing the site map for the link which has the status code 200. We are ignoring the rest of the links from that website. Table3. Dynamic website(www.srkv.org) List of errors with status code . Table-4 shows the common status code that occurs often with description and comment. When the received links which has the status 200, we could confirm that the link of that website link is working fine. When the received code is 404, the requested page or the URL is not available or unknown location to the server. When the received status code is 522, the requested web server is currently down or unavailable due to traffic. ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­ Table-4: Figure-1 represents in form of chart which the data that collected from the Table-2. From the chart we can understand that the status code of the website link data has drawn where the 404 status code occurs often than others. Figure-1 First step for creating site map we need a site to analyse the WebPages under that site. For that we are taking a link (www.srkv.org) for creating site map. After reading every page under that link, we can get a table of content which has a series of links with the status code. We found that the total link contains under that website is 193. By categorizing those pages according to the status code of the every link. The total link that contains 200 Status code is 84. The total link that contains the 404 status code is 104. The total link that contains 410 Status code is 4. The total link that contains Status code 522 is 1. By ignoring all the links that contains status code except 200. We can only create site map for the link which contains the 200 status code. Development of the sitemap Generator The sitemap which shown in the Figure-2 had generated with the help of above algorithm. The algorithm defines the process to show the result by means of root node and child node. If the link is Title it adds to the root node else it add that sub title link as child node. Figure -2 5. Conclusion We taking a required link of the website to check all the links under that which has the status code 200 and ignoring the remaining error links. The page which works completely has been taken for creating sitemap based on SMGA algorithms.  ­ Search Engine optimization Looks for sitemap in every website for the ranking system in every query search. We are developing the sitemap for the website which already do not have the sitemap within. When the SEO found the sitemap in a website then it would increase the ranking. References Frank McCown, M.N., and Johan Bollen, The Availability and Persistence of Web References in D-Lib Magazine, in the 5th International Web Archiving Workshop and Digital Preservation (IWAW05). 2005. Larry Page, R.M., Sergey Brin,Terry Winograd. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Stanford. Krishnamurthy, B.a.C.W. Cat and Mouse: content Delivery Tradeoffs in Web Access. in WWW 2006. Edinburgh, Scotland. Yuan, J., Chi, C.H., and Q. Sun. A More recise Model for Web Retrieval. in WWW 2005. 2005. Chiba, Japan. Team, I.W.S., Design for Performance: Analysis of Download Times for Page Elements Suggests Ways to Optimize. 2001. Information on â€Å"Helping Spiders Crawl through your Web Site â€Å"available at, http://sonicseo.com/helping-spiders/last accessed at 18 September, 2013. Information on â€Å"sitemaps† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps#Sitemap_index/,last modified on 15 September 2013, Information on† Free Broken Link Checker /OnlineURLValidator†http:/brokenlinkcheck.com/, last accessed at 18 September, 2013 Handaru Jati and Dhanapal Durai Dominic â€Å"Quality Evaluation of E-Government Website using Web Diagnostic Tools:Asian Case†,2009 International Conference on information management and Engineering ,2009 IEEE.

Ancient Chinese Innovations

Ancient Chinese Innovations Jennifer E Strayer University Humanities 111 Ancient Chinese Innovations The ancient Chinese culture has probably contributed more to the advancement of humans than any other. In China’s long history they have shown us many extremely important inventions. In the modern world we take a lot of these innovations for granted even though we use many of them on a daily basis. I have often wondered who invented many items I use and it surprised me to find out that most things I use and quite possibly cannot live without were invented in ancient China.What would we do if paper had not been invented we may still be etching on stone and bones? Cai Lun successfully invented the very first batch of paper using fish nets and tree bark around 105 BCE. The invention of toilet paper would not have been possible without making paper first. Navigation was made easier with the invention of the compass. Would marinara sauce taste as good if it were not covering pasta o r ravioli? Pasta was invented around 300 BCE, nearly 2000 years before the Italian or the Arabs. Would the wars of the world ended the way they did without gunpowder?Around 850 CE, Chinese alchemist discovered gunpowder while searching for immortality. Many historical records and books might not have been made if it were not for the ease of moveable-type printing, which allowed for mass production of written material. Earthquake detection is another invention that many might not have lived without it. The early seismograph created during the Han dynasty around 132 CE used a pendulum to alert for a coming earthquake. While it is not known who first invented the sundial, the first mechanical clock was an important innovation by the ancient Chinese. Clark, 2009; Laudan, 2000; University C. , n. d; Unknown, Top 10 greatest inventions of ancient China, 2007) I think the four most innovative inventions given to us by China are the compass, toilet paper, moveable-type printing and the sund ial. The magnetic compass was first made somewhere between 221-206 BCE during the Qin dynasty. The original use was in fortune telling until it was discovered that it was better used at pointing out real directions. Originally used as padding or packing material n the second century BCE, the early Chinese writers mention using toilet paper as we do today as early as 589 BCE. The Chinese invented Woodblock printing over 2,000 years ago. Bi Sheng invented moveable clay type printing from which all later printing methods were developed from. The world’s first clock was invented by Yi Xing, a Buddhist monk and mathematician, his clock operated by having water drip onto a wheel that made a revolution every 24 hours. Hundreds of years later Su Song, an astronomer and mechanist, created what we know as the ancestor of the modern clock. Bellis, n. d; University C. , n. d; Unknown, Top 10 greatest inventions of ancient China, 2007) Our modern world was created on the foundation of the se innovations, they have been improved upon and upgraded over the centuries but the basic ideas remain the same. If there were one of these inventions that I simply would not want to live without it would have to be toilet paper. While water was the common way to cleanse after each trip to the bathroom, the convenience and ease of using toilet paper had travelers to China commenting about people’s cleanliness as early as 851 CE.In any natural disaster one key thing is sanitation; toilet paper is much more sanitary than using your hand and some water. A few months ago I saw a documentary called No Impact Man, where Colin Beaven, his wife and daughter, took part in a yearlong experiment to see if they could go that long and not impact the environment. One of the experiments was if they could go a year without using toilet paper. They did it, using cloth instead, just like cloth diapers, wash and reuse. While I know now that I could survive without toilet paper, I simply would not want to. Rowles, 2010) Works Cited Barsoum, D. M. (2006, December 18). Solving the Mysteries of the Pyramids. Retrieved January 23, 2012, from Department of Materials Science & Engineering: http://www. materials. drexel. edu/News/Item/? i=948 Bellis, M. (n. d). The Compass and other Magnetic Innovations. Retrieved February 25, 2012, from inventors. About. com: http://inventors. about. com/od/cstartinventions/a/Compass. htm Clark, J. (2009, March 9). Top 10 Ancient Chinese Inventions. Retrieved February 17, 2012, from HowStuffWorks. com:

The Alltel Pavilion Case: Strategy and Cvp Analysis

ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION Vol. 19, No. 4 November 2004 pp. 555–561 The ALLTEL Pavilion Case: Strategy and CVP Analysis Edward Blocher and Kung H. Chen ABSTRACT: The ALLTEL Pavilion case is intended for the undergraduate management accounting or cost accounting course and the M. B. A. management accounting course. It provides an excellent context in which to examine strategic issues in using cost volume profit (CVP) in a service business.Based on an actual entertainment pavilion, the case develops many factors unique to a service business and illustrates how pavilion management can use CVP analysis to determine which artists to attract and what kinds of contracts to have with these performers. The Pavilion has two types of customers (paying ticket holders and free ticket holders) and earns profits from three types of revenues (ticket revenues, concession revenues, and parking fees).The case requires you to identify the best strategy for different types of artists, conduct cost-volume-profit analyses, consider the strategic issues related to operating leverage and how this affects the choice of performer and contract, and assess pricing strategies. O ne day in early November, Pam Berg, Manager of the ALLTEL Pavilion, was reviewing the operating results for the year just completed in preparation for the executive board meeting the following Friday. While the year ended in the black, she was disappointed that the ALLTEL Pavilion failed to earn the budgeted profit goal.This was the second year since Ms. Berg assumed the manager’s position at the ALLTEL Pavilion. After the somewhat disappointing first year, she was determined to exceed the budgeted profit in the coming year. While not all events developed exactly as expected at the time of preparing the budget for the year, there were no major surprises during the year. Yet, the operating results are below the budgeted goal. In addition, Pam was frustrated by the lack of clear guidelines for contra ct negotiations with artists, for setting ticket prices, and in dealing with unexpected low ticket sales for certain concerts.THE ALLTEL PAVILION FOR LIVE ENTERTAINMENT The ALLTEL Pavilion in Raleigh, North Carolina (http://www. alltelpavilion. com/) is an outdoor amphitheater that provides live concerts to the public from April through October each year, hosting as many as half a million patrons a year. The seven-month season usually hosts an average of 40 concerts, and 12 year-round staff plan and manage each season. SFX Entertainment Inc. (http://sfxyes. liveonline. net/) operates the pavilion. SFX is one of the largest diversified promoters, producers, and venue operators for live entertainment events in the United States.It has 71 venues either directly owned or operated under lease or exclusive booking arrangements in 29 of the top 50 U. S. markets, including 14 amphitheaters or pavilions in 9 of the top 10 markets. Edward Blocher is a Professor at The University of North Caro lina at Chapel Hill, and Kung H. Chen is a Professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. 555 556 Blocher and Chen ALLTEL Pavilion wants to be the nightlife for the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC) and eastern North Carolina, and one of the most beautiful, technologically advanced, and successful amphitheaters in the world.It features the most modern state-of-the-art acoustics and video of any facility of its kind. In the last few years, ALLTEL Pavilion staged shows by the Dave Matthews Band, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Toby Keith, Santana, Tim McGraw, Aerosmith, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, and many other national, regional, and local artists. The Pavilion claims, â€Å"There isn’t a bad seat in the house. Whether you choose to spread a blanket on our gently sloping festival lawn or select a reserved seat in our pavilion seating area, you are guaranteed a great view of the action on the stage† (ALLTEL Pavilion website).Exhibit 1 shows the stage and seating of the amphitheater. History/Development The city of Raleigh and Pace Entertainment Company of Houston, Texas jointly built the ALLTEL Pavilion in 1991. Pace Entertainment and Cellar Door Inc. of Raleigh, NC had the initial contract to manage the Pavilion. Hardee’s Food Systems, Inc. of Rocky Mount, NC, the original sponsor of the amphitheater, paid an annual fee to carry its name and logo on all signs and ads regarding the amphitheater. On February 3, 1999 ALLTEL Corp (http://tel. com) became the title sponsor for the amphitheater.The demand for the outdoor facility came about because the rapidly growing city of Raleigh lacked a major entertainment complex. In the late 1980s Pace Entertainment and the city of Raleigh came to an agreement to build the facility. The city of Raleigh would own the land while Pace Entertainment would own the facility and assume sole operations of the facility; Cellar Door would do the booking for all the concerts. Pace Entertainment would pay income taxes on earnings from the use of the facility. In 1998, SFX Entertainment Inc. acquired Pace Entertainment Inc.The amphitheater facility and its employees became part of SFX Entertainment Inc. Also, in 1999 SFX Entertainment Inc. acquired Cellar Door Inc. and merged with Clear Channel Communications Inc. , one of the largest owners of radio stations in the country. This move brought together both worlds of the entertainment business. While the company has diverse holdings, the philosophy of SFX is â€Å"One Company, One Mission. † Many companies that are now owned by SFX were at one time bitter rivals in the concertpromoting business. These companies now maintain good working relationships within SFX.A key goal for SFX is for the net operating income of each of its holdings, including the ALLTEL Pavilion, to grow 5 percent each year. The Pavilion competes with the RBC Center (http://www. rbccenter. com) at North Carolina State University in Raleigh (NCSU), the De an Smith Activities Center (http://tarheelblue. ocsn. com/genrel/ 092301aad. html) at The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC (UNC), and the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Charlotte, NC (http://www. verizonwirelessamphitheater. com/charlotte/), among others.In contrast to the facilities at NCSU and UNC that offer only indoor events, the Pavilion offers outdoor as well as sheltered seating for its events. Marketing, Operations, and Accounting When the marketing department plans a promotion for an upcoming event, it coordinates with the sales department to see if there is a conflict in sponsorship. Marketing also coordinates with the operations department to effectively manage the activities on show days. Finally, the budget of each department (sales, marketing, and operations) is reviewed by the accounting department, which provides overall financial anagement of the project. Bringing Concerts to Reality A concert becomes reality in many steps. First, a group or perform er with an interest in performing at ALLTEL will discuss with Cellar Door, Inc. and the Pavilion the possibility of performing at Issues in Accounting Education, November 2004 The ALLTEL Pavilion Case: Strategy and CVP Analysis 557 the Pavilion, and look at the open dates. Upon reaching an agreement, Cellar Door, on behalf of the Pavilion, signs a contract with the booking agent for the performer.A time is specified for gate openings, and once the gate is opened the show is underway. The job of the staff during a concert is to make sure every customer of the ALLTEL Pavilion has a pleasant experience and that the mission of the company is clearly seen by everyone that â€Å"a concert †¦ it’s better live. † Clean Sweep Inc. of Raleigh handles the cleanup after a show. Key Business Issues Marketing has an important role in the success of the ALLTEL Pavilion, but marketing expenditures are carefully watched. For every show, the marketing budget is limited to $20,000.F or many shows it is difficult to stay within the budget, since the Pavilion serves a five-market region consisting of Raleigh-Durham, Fayetteville, Wilmington, Greensboro, and the Carolina Coast. Most of the marketing budget is spent on advertising with radio, TV, and print media in the designated regions. Prior to developing advertising plans, the marketing staff analyzes ticket sales geographically over the five-market region. It is important to know the demographics of the five regions and compare them with the profile for each performer. The more ALLTEL Pavilion can know about the fans, the more they know where to spend the $20,000.SFX develops measures of performance and profitability for each advertising media, by region. This type of analysis is important to the ALLTEL Pavilion because increased ticket sales, through effective advertising, not only affect ticket revenues, but also revenues from parking, merchandise, and concessions. It is also important because of the increas ed cost of advertising. The advertising rates in the Raleigh-Durham region are comparable to the rates in Washington, D. C. The rates are up 200 percent over the last five years, while the budgets per show are only up 15 percent over this time.The cost of the performing artist has also increased dramatically. The average fee for an artist is approximately $160,000. Some artists are paid on a fixed-fee basis, while others are paid on a per capita basis. Generally, the most popular artists seek a per capita contract because they are confident of a high level of attendance. In contrast, the artist paid a fixed-fee is guaranteed the same fee whether 100 or 20,000 people attend (the capacity of the Pavilion is approximately 20,000 attendance). On average, the total number of paid tickets per fixed-fee concert is 7,000.The role of marketing and advertising is especially important for fixed-fee shows. One method the Pavilion uses in addition to advertising is to distribute â€Å"comp† tickets (comp tickets are free tickets distributed throughout the community) to build interest in the Pavilion that will later be realized in paying customers. Comp customers also bring in revenue for parking, concessions, and merchandise sales. In a fixed-fee concert, the number of comp tickets is approximately 25 percent of the number of paying tickets, while a per capita show has no more than 2. 5 percent.Because of the increasing cost of the performing artists, ALLTEL Pavilion tries to reduce nonartist costs. Nonartist costs at ALLTEL Pavilion include expenses for sales, marketing, parking, security, concessions, and merchandise. Since assuming the manager position, Pam has developed several avenues to reduce nonartist costs and/or increase revenues and profits, including reducing expenses, having the parking service pass out flyers for upcoming events, trading â€Å"comp† tickets for online spots in the radio industry, and giving local businesses tickets in exchange f or advertising on their premises.Revenues, Costs, and Flash Report for the KFBS Allstars Concert Exhibit 2 is a mock flash report for an illustrative fixed-fee show, the KFBS Allstars. A flash report is a projection of costs and revenues for a scheduled concert. The guarantee/talent cost ($160,635) is the amount the KFBS Allstars are guaranteed for the show. Projected sales is the number of projected paying ticket holders, while the â€Å"drop count† is total attendance, including both Issues in Accounting Education, November 2004 558 Blocher and Chen paid and comp tickets.Setting ticket price is often done together with the performer, taking into consideration SFX’s national and regional pricing policies, prices of comparable venues, and the Pavilion’s desired profit for the concert. Pam uses the flash report to plan potential concerts and to evaluate the success of concerts already presented. The report shows the variety of revenues and costs for a concert, an d the projected profit for the concert. The flash report projects total revenues including ticket sales, parking, food, and merchandise based on per capita (drop count) rates.Ticket sales are in four ticket categories: A seats and B seats are regular price tickets for the reserved and lawn seating sections respectively; C and D seats are promotional (discount) price tickets for reserved and lawn seating, respectively. Other revenues include per capita facility charges paid by the sponsoring corporation for naming rights (based on paid ticket holders) and a per capita service charge paid by the performer for food, transportation, and other services. Not included are the annual lease payments for VIP seats at $10,000 per year.Patrons to the VIP seats also have to pay the ticket price of A-level seats. Reserved and lawn seating areas are shown in Exhibit 1. The parking, food concession, and merchandise operations are outsourced to other service providers, so the direct costs for parkin g, merchandise and concessions are determined based on contracts with the service providers that include both a percentage (10 percent) of applicable revenues and a fixed fee. Operating expenses include an allocation of the total of fixed production and operations costs for the season, the advertising expenses for the KFBS Allstars event, and other variable expenses.These are then added to the direct costs for concessions, merchandise, parking, and insurance to determine total operating expenses. REQUIRED How would you describe the competitive strategy of the ALLTEL Pavilion? Given the firm’s strategy, what are the critical success factors for the Pavilion to achieve its goal of continuous annual growth in operating income? 2. Complete two selected cost-volume-profit analyses for the show illustrated in Exhibit 2, the KFBS Allstars: a) How many tickets must the ALLTEL Pavilion sell to break even? ) How many tickets must ALLTEL sell to earn $30,000 operating income after taxes , assuming a 40 percent tax rate? 3. What should be the average ticket price for the KFBS concert if the fixed-pay fee is $200,000 and the Pavilion expects to sell 7,000 tickets and wants to earn $30,000 after 40 percent in taxes? 4. Negotiating the fee for the KFBS Allstars: fixed-pay or per capita contracts? a) What is the maximum fixed fee that the Pavilion can pay the KFBS Allstars if the Pavilion wants to earn $45,000 after 40 percent tax and expects the show to have an average ticket price of $22. 12?Assume the show is expected to draw 6,000 paying ticket holders. b) What is the maximum fixed fee that the Pavilion can pay the KFBS Allstars if the Pavilion wants to earn $45,000 after 40 percent tax and expects the show to have an average ticket price of $22. 12? Assume, including 25 percent comp tickets, the show is expected to be a sell-out. c) Independent of (a) and (b), what is the maximum per capita fee that the Pavilion can pay the KFBS Allstars, whose concert is expected to be a sellout, if the Pavilion wants to earn $180,000 after 40 percent tax from an average ticket price of $22. 2 per ticket? 5. What role does CVP analysis and operating leverage play in contract negotiations with different types of performers (fixed-fee or per capita)? 1. Issues in Accounting Education, November 2004 The ALLTEL Pavilion Case: Strategy and CVP Analysis 559 EXHIBIT 1 ALLTEL Pavilion Stage and Seating The Pavilion can accommodate 20,000 fans with 7,000 reserved seats directly in front of the stage (covered seating in sections 1 through 9 and VIP seating) and another 13,000 on the spacious lawn. It has 78 theater-style VIP boxes that can accommodate 4, 6, or 8 people.In addition to positioning for prime viewing, patrons in VIP boxes also enjoy amenities such as wait staff service at their seats, personalized parking, and exclusive membership to the VIP Bar & Grill. Directly in front of sections 4, 5, 8, and 9 is seating with an elevated floor that provides excellent views of the stage for patrons with disabilities and additional seating for the hearing or visually impaired. Lawn Seating Reserved, Covered Seating Issues in Accounting Education, November 2004 560 Blocher and Chen EXHIBIT 2 Flash Report for the KFBS Allstars ConcertARTIST NAME ACTIVITY/EVENT NUMBER EVENT MONTH EVENT DATE Projected Sales (Number of Seats) A Seats B Seats C Seats D Seats TOTAL Number of Seats Projected Ticket Price A Seats B Seats C Seats D Seats PROJECTED NET AFTER TAX ADMISSIONS AVG TIX PRICE NET OF TAX PER PAYING PATRON TALENT % GUARANTEE/TALENT COSTS NUMBER OF PERFORMANCES DROP COUNT (includes comp tickets) Other Ticket-Related Revenue FACILITY CHARGE Per capita SERVICE CHARGE Per capita REVENUE FROM TICKETING Per capita ANCILLARY REVENUES PARKING Per capita FOOD CONCESSION Per capita MERCHANDISE Per capita RENTALS REVENUE FROM ANCILLARIES Per capita TOTAL REVENUE Per capita The KFBS Allstars 10310001 7 7/31/04 2,778 2,845 1,747 881 8,251 $36. 29 $22. 22 $11. 3 1 $ 4. 92 $182,479 $22. 12 88. 03% $160,635 1 10,349 $24,010 $2. 91 $16,172 $1. 96 $222,673 $26. 99 $19,767 $1. 91 $79,273 $7. 66 $36,428 $3. 52 $0. 00 $135,468 $13. 09 $358,141 $34. 61 (continued on next page) Issues in Accounting Education, November 2004 The ALLTEL Pavilion Case: Strategy and CVP Analysis 561EXHIBIT 2 (continued) Other Direct Costs PARKING CONTRACT CONCESSION CONTRACT MERCHANDISE CONTRACT TOTAL DIRECT COSTS Per capita PERCENT OF SALES TOTAL REVENUE (from above) TOTAL DIRECT COSTS (from above) GROSS PROFIT Operating Expenses TOTAL PRODUCTION EXPENSE TOTAL OPERATIONS EXPENSE TOTAL OTHER VAR. EXPENSE TOTAL ADVERTISING EXPENSE TOTAL OPERATING EXP Per capita PERCENT OF SALES OPERATING INCOME Per capita PERCENT OF SALES Detail: Other Concert Variable Expense Insurance Expense per person COGS—Concession per person COGS—Merchandise Inventory per person COGS—Parking per person Other Variable Concert Expense per person TOTAL OTHER VARIABLE EXPENSE $0. 1 7 $0. 35 $1. 12 $0. 08 $0. 02 $14,323 $4,448 $43,356 $17,826 $226,265 $21. 86 63. 2% $358,141 $226,265 $131,876 $15,506 $14,991 $14,323 $20,030 $64,850 $6. 27 18. 1% $67,026 $6. 48 18. 7% Issues in Accounting Education, November 2004

The Wild And Wildlife Conservation Commission - 1699 Words

The second species to address is the lionfish The lionfish as a species here in Florida waters are depleting its existing foods, being species such as gobies and snapper. Off the Florida Keys, â€Å"Nichols used to find shrimp and other small invertebrates in his lobster traps, but he has noticed a steep decline†. This man suspects that from their habits of overeating the only solution the lionfish have for a source of food is to result in cannibalism, an increase in cannibalism that could mean that there are so many lionfish that lionfish are controlling themselves (Buskey, Edward) According to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, â€Å"Lionfish have 18 venomous spines that should be avoided during capture and handling because they can cause painful injuries. â€Å"Thirteen long venomous spines are found on top of the dorsal fin which are also located on top of the fish s spine. 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